100 episodes

The ASCO Daily News Podcast features oncologists discussing the latest research and therapies in their areas of expertise.

ASCO Daily News American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)

    • Health & Fitness
    • 4.5 • 51 Ratings

The ASCO Daily News Podcast features oncologists discussing the latest research and therapies in their areas of expertise.

    Innovations in CAR T-Cell Therapy for Multiple Myeloma

    Innovations in CAR T-Cell Therapy for Multiple Myeloma

    Drs. John Sweetenham and Shaji Kumar discuss the emergence of CAR T-cell therapy for multiple myeloma, its benefits and challenges for patients, and its potential role earlier in the treatment of disease.
    TRANSCRIPT

    Dr. John Sweetenham: Hello, I'm Dr. John Sweetenham from the UT Southwestern Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and host of the ASCO Daily News Podcast. 
    Multiple myeloma is the second most common hematologic malignancy, and the American Cancer Society estimates that there will be more than 35,000 new cases of the disease diagnosed in the United States this year. The emergence of several novel therapies over the last decade has transformed the therapeutic landscape for multiple myeloma, and chimeric antigen receptor – or CAR T-cell therapy – is one of the newest treatments for this disease, which has created a great deal of buzz. 
    Dr. Shaji Kumar is an internationally renowned investigator of novel therapeutics and next-generation treatment options for patients with multiple myeloma, and I'm delighted to welcome him to the podcast today to discuss innovations in CAR T-cell therapy in this space. Dr. Kumar is a professor of medicine and chair of the Myeloma Group, as well as chair of research in the Division of Hematology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Hematologist. 
    You'll find our full disclosures available in the transcript of this episode, and disclosures of all guests on the podcast are available at asco.org/DNpod. 
    Shaji, it's great to have you on the podcast today.
    Dr. Shaji Kumar: Thanks, John.
    Dr. John Sweetenham: Shaji, to begin with, maybe we could ask you for an overview of where CAR T-cell therapy sits in multiple myeloma right now. We know that CAR T-cell therapy has improved the survival for some patients with myeloma in recent years. But of course, relapse still remains a problem. Can you tell us a little about the therapies that are currently approved for multiple myeloma in the CAR T-cell space, and what are the potential benefits and challenges of these products?
    Dr. Shaji Kumar: Absolutely. It has been a revolution, I think, in terms of therapies for multiple myeloma during the past decade. We have seen so many new treatments approved for myeloma, and consequently, the survival of patients with myeloma has significantly improved. Two decades ago, we used to tell patients a median survival of 3 years, and today we tell patients a median survival of 8 to 10 years, a number that is continuing to go up. And it is all because of the new treatments that have become available for patients, especially over the past decade, and CAR T-cell therapy has been a game changer.  
    Now, the main treatments that we were relying on for the past 2 decades have been the immunomodulatory drugs, the proteasome inhibitors, and more recently, the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibodies. Unfortunately, what we see in the clinic is that patients go through these therapies and various combinations of these agents, and often over the 6 to 10 years after the diagnosis, they often become refractory to these drugs. And then we are left with very few choices, if any, for controlling the disease. And that's where the CAR T cells have really made an impact. 
    Over the past several years, clinical trials have shown that CAR T-cell therapy is highly effective. In fact, when we look at the initial trials that have been done in this space, the majority of these CAR T cells have been targeted towards what we call BCMA, or a B-cell maturation antigen that is present on both normal and abnormal plasma cells. Now, the concept of CAR T cells has been around for a while, and we have already seen success in other hematological malignancies, but it has been a little late compared to the other diseases in terms of its arrival in the myeloma field. But over the past few years, we have seen some dramatic progress. We currently have two different CAR T cells that a

    • 20 min
    ADCs in Breast Cancer: Sequencing, Resistance, and Managing Toxicity

    ADCs in Breast Cancer: Sequencing, Resistance, and Managing Toxicity

    Drs. Hope Rugo and Sara Tolaney discuss the promise of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in the treatment of breast cancer, highlighting key trials that shed light on matching the right ADC to the right patient in the right setting. They also explore how combinations and sequencing of ADCs can augment their efficacy, the mechanisms of resistance, and the future potential of biomarkers to predict patient response.
    TRANSCRIPT
    Dr. Hope Rugo: Hello, I'm Dr. Hope Rugo, your guest host of the ASCO Daily News Podcast today. I'm a professor of medicine and director of breast oncology and clinical trials education at the University of California, San Francisco's Comprehensive Cancer Center.
    Antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, are rapidly changing the treatment landscape for patients with breast cancer. ADCs consist of antibodies that target tumor-specific antigens on the cell surface, chemical linkers, and cytotoxic payloads that can act powerfully to kill cancer cells. On today's episode, we'll be discussing advances in research to match the right ADC to the right patients and in the right setting. We'll also talk about the next steps, assessing how combinations and sequencing of ADCs can augment their efficacy, improve options for patients, and identify biomarkers in the future to predict how patients will respond so that we can match the right treatment to the right patient and their tumor. We need to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of resistance that occur upfront as well as under the pressure of treatment. 
    Joining me for this important discussion is Dr. Sara Tolaney. Dr. Tolaney is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, associate director of the Susan Smith Center for Women's Cancer, and chief of the Division of Breast Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 
    You'll find our full disclosures in the transcript of this episode and disclosures of all guests on the podcast are available at asco.org/DNpod.
    Dr. Tolaney, we're delighted to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for being here.
    Dr. Sara Tolaney: Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to the discussion.
    Dr. Hope Rugo: Great! So, we'll move forward, and because we're friends and colleagues, I'm going to refer to you as Sara, and I'm Hope, since we’ll dispense with formalities in our discussion. 
    A lot of the talks that we give about ADCs start out with “a revolution in breast cancer therapy.” And indeed, this is a really exciting time with ADCs as treatment for breast cancer, and we're rapidly moving these agents into earlier disease settings. Can you tell us a little bit about the possibilities and challenges of using ADCs for the treatment of breast cancer today?
    Dr. Sara Tolaney: It's interesting that you say antibody-drug conjugates as revolutionizing outcomes of breast cancer, which I think is true. But on the flip side, I think it's also bringing up a lot of questions about how to use them, when to use them, and how to manage side effects. So there are a lot of good strengths for these antibody-drug conjugates, but a lot of unknowns that we're still trying to figure out. We had an older antibody-drug conjugate T-DM1 that we were all very familiar with that for years had been a treatment that we used very commonly in metastatic disease and now even use in early breast cancer, and I think has changed outcomes for patients. But over time, we've been able to develop newer antibody-drug conjugates as the technology has really evolved so that these agents now are able to deliver a lot of chemotherapy into a cancer cell. We're seeing very high drug-to-antibody ratios, and we're also seeing that these drugs can function via bystander effect, whereas T-DM1, for example, was not able to do that. But our newer ADCs, like sacituzumab govitecan or trastuzumab deruxtecan, are agents that do allow chemotherapy to get into that cancer cell, but also to get into neighboring cells. 
    And I think

    • 30 min
    Advances in Precision Oncology for GI Cancers at GI24

    Advances in Precision Oncology for GI Cancers at GI24

    Drs. Shaalan Beg and Rachna Shroff discuss key abstracts on GI cancers that were featured at the 2024 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, including SKYSCRAPER-08, EMERALD-1, and NEST-1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and colorectal cancer, respectively.
    TRANSCRIPT
    Dr. Shaalan Beg: Hello, and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm Dr. Shaalan Beg, your guest host of the podcast today. I’m an adjunct associate professor at UT Southwestern's Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and vice president of oncology at Science 37. Today, we'll be discussing key abstracts and other exciting highlights from the 2024 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. Joining me to discuss some key takeaways from the meeting is the chair of this year's Symposium, Dr. Rachna Shroff. Dr. Shroff is the division chief of Hematology Oncology and chief of GI Medical Oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. She also serves as the associate dean for clinical and translational research at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson.
    Our full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode, and disclosures related to all episodes of the podcast are available at asco.org/DNpod. 
    Dr. Shroff, welcome back to the ASCO Daily News Podcast, and congratulations on a great Symposium. The scientific advances and innovative, multidisciplinary approaches that were featured throughout the meeting were really inspiring and reflect the incredible strides we’re making in GI cancer research.
    Dr. Rachna Shroff: Thank you so much for having me back. I am delighted to be here. 
    Dr. Shaalan Beg: Dr. Shroff, the theme of this year's symposium was "Taking Personalized Care to the Next Level." I’d love to hear your reflections on the sessions that you found most exciting and really resonated with the attendees. 
    Dr. Rachna Shroff: Yes, thank you. We were really excited about this theme because we really felt that “Taking Personalized Care to the Next Level” translated to thinking through personalized approaches to patient care, not just in the traditional ways that we think of with precision oncology and genomics driving our care, but also how we can think through multidisciplinary approaches and an individualized care plan. Thinking through how artificial intelligence and novel clinical trial designs can and should be implemented to meet the needs of our individual patients. And so we really highlighted that in what was a somewhat new reboot of a session called “Intersections,” which were every day and were really more cross-tumor; they were tumor agnostic but were thematic focused. As I mentioned, those themes were really based on feedback that we had from prior attendees, as well as from the program committee’s feeling on what are really the questions that we are dealing with and that are burning in the clinic today and that includes the emerging role of artificial intelligence and machine learning and how we integrate that into our clinical care, approaches to oligometastatic disease, and it’s not really just something that we think of in colorectal cancer but haven’t fully used that paradigm to really apply it to other GI malignancies. And then the art and science of clinical trial design where, again, traditional randomized phase 3 trials might not be the best and most innovative and most expedient way of bringing novel therapeutics to our patients. And so, I thought that all of those sessions were really highlighting different important topics that we deal with day to day.
    Additionally, we had a really fantastic keynote lecture from Dr. Kimmie Ng of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is a world-renowned expert in the early-onset colorectal cancer space, and the timing of her keynote was perfect with the new cancer statistics that came out literally days before GI ASCO that demonstrated this just dramatic rise in early onset GI malignancies as a whole, not

    • 22 min
    Key Advances in Prostate, Kidney, and Bladder Cancers at GU24

    Key Advances in Prostate, Kidney, and Bladder Cancers at GU24

    Drs. Neeraj Agarwal and Todd Morgan discuss CONTACT-02, KEYNOTE-564, CheckMate-67T, and other notable studies featured at the 2024 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, as well as additional key abstracts in prostate, kidney, and bladder cancers that will significantly influence clinical practice.
    TRANSCRIPT
    Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Hello, and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm Dr. Neeraj Agarwal, the director of the Genitourinary Oncology Program and professor of medicine at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, and editor-in-chief of ASCO Daily News. Today, we'll be discussing practice-changing abstracts and other key advances in GU oncology featured at the 2024 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.
    Joining me for this discussion is Dr. Todd Morgan, the chair of this year's ASCO GU. Dr. Morgan is a urologic surgeon, chief of urologic oncology at Michigan Medicine, and a professor of urology at the University of Michigan. Our full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode, and the disclosures of all guests on the podcast can be found at asco.org/DNpod. Todd, thank you for joining us today.
    Dr. Todd Morgan: Thanks so much, Neeraj. It's an honor to be here and I'm just thrilled to be able to do this with you.
    Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Thank you. So, the GU meeting showcased significant advancements across the spectrum of GU malignancies. Can you tell us about the hot topics that captured the headlines this year? What did you find exciting this year at the ASCO GU Symposium?
    Dr. Todd Morgan: The theme of this year's meeting was "20 Years of Advancing Science and Transforming Patient Care," and this reflected ASCO GU's incredible milestone in GU cancer research over the last 2 decades. We were thrilled to welcome over 5,200 attendees from over 70 countries, and, believe it or not, there were more than 875 abstract submissions, compared to more than 300 in the meeting's first year. Most of the participants were present in person and that was fantastic. It enabled great networking opportunities and opportunities for experts, trainees, and mentees to exchange knowledge and ideas. Without a doubt, ASCO GU remains the annual meeting in our field, and it's amazing to hear the breadth and depth of the state-of-the-art science that's presented at this meeting, and so much of it impacts patient care the second that you return home.
    Additionally, the meeting's focus on diversity and interactivity, networking, multidisciplinary collaboration, and evidence-based care were absolutely phenomenal from my standpoint. We had a lunch session for women's networking that was a huge success—the first time we've done that. The keynote lecture by Dr. Cheryl Lee that talked about ensuring adequate representation in clinical trials was a huge hit, and we had tremendous positive feedback from that lecture. There were also multiple featured sessions on different diagnostic and therapeutic challenges in localized, recurrent, and advanced GU cancers. And, Neeraj, my personal favorite during the symposium is always the Trainee and Early-Career Networking Luncheon on the first day and then the additional networking luncheons on the 2 following days. I had great conversations with a ton of trainees and junior faculty, and I feel so fortunate for the opportunity to get to know the future superstars in our field.
    So I’d like to kick it back to you for a second because the first day started with a focus on prostate cancer and some of the key clinical trials. A great example is Abstract 17, which was the second oral presentation delivered, and really congratulations to you, Neeraj, on sharing the exciting data from the CONTACT-02 trial which we were eagerly awaiting. And I'd love to get your thoughts on the data that you presented. Could you tell us more about that trial?
    Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Yes, Todd, I agree with you. It was such an exciting conference overall, and thank you for your leadership of this conferenc

    • 30 min
    What’s New in Prostate Cancer, RCC, and mUC at GU24

    What’s New in Prostate Cancer, RCC, and mUC at GU24

    Drs. Neeraj Agarwal and Jeanny Aragon-Ching discuss several key abstracts to be presented at the 2024 ASCO GU Cancers Symposium, including sequencing versus upfront combination therapies for mCRPC in the BRCAAway study, updates on the CheckMate-9ER and CheckMate-214 trials in ccRCC, and a compelling real-world retrospective study in mUC of patients with FGFR2 and FGFR3 mutations.
    TRANSCRIPT
    Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm Dr. Neeraj Agarwal, your guest host of the podcast today. I am the director of the Genitourinary Oncology Program and a professor of medicine at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, and editor-in-chief of ASCO Daily News. I am delighted to welcome Dr. Jeanny Aragon-Ching, a genitourinary oncologist and the clinical program director of Genitourinary Cancers at the Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Virginia. Today, we will be discussing key posters and oral abstracts that will be featured at the 2024 ASCO Genitourinary Cancer Symposium, which is celebrating 20 years of evolution in GU oncology this year. 
    You will find our full disclosures in the transcript of this podcast, and disclosures of all guests on the podcast at asco.org/DNpod. 
    Jeanny, it’s great to have you on the podcast today to highlight some key abstracts for our listeners ahead of the GU meeting.
    Dr. Jeanny Aragon-Ching: Thank you so much, Neeraj. It’s an honor to be here.
    Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Jeanny, as you know, this year we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ASCO GU Cancers Symposium, and judging from this year's abstracts, it’s clear that this meeting continues to play a major role in advancing GU cancer research.
    Dr. Jeanny Aragon-Ching: Indeed, Neeraj. This year's abstracts reflect the important strides we have made in GU cancers. So, let's start with the prostate cancer abstracts. What is your takeaway from Abstract 19 on BRCAAway, which will be presented by Dr. Maha Hussein, and of which you are a co-author? As our listeners know, several PARP inhibitor combinations with second-generation androgen receptor pathway inhibitors, or ARPIs, have recently been approved as first-line treatment for patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer, or metastatic CRPC, and the question of sequencing PARP inhibitors and ARPIs instead of combining them has emerged. From that perspective, the results of the BRCAAway trial are very important. Can you tell us a little bit more about this abstract, Neeraj? 
    Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: I totally agree with you, Jeanny. The BRCAAway study attempts to answer the crucial questions regarding sequencing versus upfront combination of therapies in the mCRPC setting. It is a phase 2 trial of abiraterone versus olaparib versus abiraterone with olaparib in patients with mCRPC harboring homologous recombination repair mutations. Enrolled patients had mCRPC disease and no prior exposure to PARP inhibitors or ARPIs or chemotherapy in the mCRPC setting and had BRCA1 or BRCA2 or ATM mutations. As previously mentioned, these patients were randomized to 3 arms: abiraterone monotherapy at 1000 milligrams once daily, or olaparib monotherapy at 300 milligrams twice daily, or the combination of abiraterone and olaparib. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival per RECIST 1.1 or Prostate Cancer Working Group 3-based criteria or clinical assessment or death, so, whichever occurred first was deemed to be progression.  
    Secondary endpoints included measurable disease response rates, PSA response rate, and toxicity. This was a relatively small trial with 21 patients in the combination arm, 19 patients in the abiraterone monotherapy arm, and 21 patients in the olaparib monotherapy arm. It should be noted that 26% of patients had received docetaxel chemotherapy in the hormone-sensitive setting, and only 3% of patients had any prior exposure to an ARPI, and these were darolutamide or enzalutamide or in the non-metastati

    • 25 min
    Celebrating 20 Years of Evolution in GU Oncology

    Celebrating 20 Years of Evolution in GU Oncology

    Drs. Eric Small, Anthony Zietman, and Eric Klein share their reflections as founders of the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and discuss key moments in the Meeting’s development, its role in advancing GU cancer research, and major challenges ahead for the field as the Symposium celebrates its 20-year anniversary.
    TRANSCRIPT
    Dr. Eric Small: Hello, and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm Dr. Eric Small, your guest host of this ASCO Daily News Podcast today. I'm the co-leader of the UCSF Prostate Cancer Program and deputy director and chief scientific officer at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
    This year, quite amazingly, we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, which is hosted annually in San Francisco. The Symposium has heralded some of the biggest strides in GU oncology and has the largest multidisciplinary, global audience for GU cancer research.
    I was honored to have a role in the development of ASCO GU two decades ago, along with my friends and colleagues, Dr. Eric Klein, emeritus professor and chair of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. And Dr. Anthony Zietman, a professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.
    On today's episode, we'll be reflecting on key moments in the meeting's development, its role in advancing GU cancers and GU cancer research, and major challenges that lay ahead for the field. You'll find our full disclosures in the transcript of this episode, and disclosures of all guests on the podcast are available at asco.org/DNpod.
    Eric and Anthony, I'm delighted to have this opportunity to catch up with you both to discuss ASCO GU, thank you for coming on the podcast today.
    Dr. Eric Klein: Thanks for having us.
    Dr. Anthony Zietman: Thanks for the invitation.
    Dr. Eric Small: Well, it's really exciting and it's wonderful to see the two of you. So, the ASCO GU Symposium has been a key annual event for all of us in the GU field. But to give our listeners some background, when the Symposium was first created, when we first met in San Francisco, starting on Thursday, February 17, 2005, it brought together 1,035 individuals interested in the prevention and treatment at that point of prostate cancer alone.
    At that time, the meeting was co-sponsored by ASCO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology or ASTRO, the Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO), and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. It was actually the culmination of several years of planning. Clearly, it represented the first truly multidisciplinary scientific and educational meeting dedicated solely to prostate cancer, and we'll come back to talk about that.
    The meeting went back and forth between San Francisco and Florida for a few years before finally, settling permanently in San Francisco. In the last 20 years, ASCO and the Symposium's co-sponsors expanded the meeting to include all genitourinary specialties. This year, ASCO received more than 875 abstract submissions and anticipates that there will be even more attendees than last year.
    On a personal note, it's truly amazing to me that here we are, 20 years later, and the meeting is going stronger than we could ever have imagined. I must say that my motivation to help organize this meeting stem from two issues that were somewhat in tension with each other.
    First, the field of prostate cancer and prostate cancer research was just starting to take off at the time, and we really needed, as a community, a venue where across disciplines, we could talk and meet with each other. But that was in real tension, at least at ASCO, where we were relegated at the Annual Meeting to a tiny room at the far end of the convention center on the last day of ASCO, because really, that's all we could muster.
    And I do remember making a pitch, assuring folks that there was an unmet need, and that the field was going to take off, who

    • 20 min

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5
51 Ratings

51 Ratings

dinar320 ,

Advanced prostrate cancer

Exceptional research done by these doctors and researchers- someone in my family has advanced prostrate cancer - which has moved into hip bone.
It is so scary .
Right now he’s on hormone therapy . To reduce the size of the gland.
He’s 84 and is in excellent health.
He’s in Carmel so if there are trials or anything else I’d love to pass the information on to him.

After listening to this podcast I am excited about the novel studies /trials on the horizon .

The fact that many cancer patients and Drs are too busy trying to help themselves -
You guys are doing phenomenal work.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart .

D0ct0r.J ,

No help to practice. Agenda driven.

None of this helps me in my practice. It seems like an agenda driven outlet with very little, if any practice changing information.

?.... ,

Love the new host!

Great resource for a more intimate understanding of cancer and the evolving treatments

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